Once Upon A Dream
by Sat-Isis
Summary: Kylo Ren is brought before Supreme Leader Snoke to finish his training. Disgusted by the failure of Han Solo's death to quiet the Light inside of his apprentice, Snoke places Kylo Ren under a deep Force sleep. Kylo Ren must destroy Ben Solo within himself once and for all in order to waken. Only Rey has the power to enter the labyrinth of Kylo Ren's dreamtime and save Ben Solo.
1. Prologue

Once Upon a Dream

* * *

Prologue

* * *

General Hux had not known it, but the hologram chamber was an exact replica of the room he stood in now. Kylo Ren's good arm had been draped over his shoulder for much of the walk down to this place. Pride or fear had compelled Ren to draw away at the last moment of privacy before entering the throne room of the Supreme Leader. Both their necks craned up to the Supreme Leader, waiting. Hux had a bad feeling about this.

"General Hux, I see you have brought me Kylo Ren. Good, good," the Supreme Leader examined him.

"Our strategy must change again, General," Snoke began, "the Resistance will find Skywalker and there lies our unraveling. It is imperative that the First Order gain control of the Core and starve the Resistance of resources. I entrust you with this task."

"Yes, Supreme Leader," Hux replied and turned to leave Ren alone with his master.

"GENERAL!" Snoke bellowed and Hux froze before turning back to the Supreme Leader.

"I am…displeased at the loss of Starkiller Base."

"I take full responsibility, Supreme Leader." Snoke considered him, pale and resigned to his fate,

"Stay and witness." His eyes swiveled to Kylo Ren. "Is it done?"

"Yes, Supreme Leader," Ren rasped, "Han Solo is dead."

Snoke seemed to consider it for a moment. He gestured with his fingers splayed at the at the figure Ren cut before him, murmuring, "and yet…"

Abruptly, Snoke's terrible fingers grasped the armrests of his throne as he leaned forward, "Step forth, Kylo Ren, and tell me why you have failed to bring me the girl."

Ren stepped forward, one foot dragging slightly. It caused the fabric caked with dried blood to scrape across the floor. Hux found it was a terrible sound in all that empty space around them.

Ren took to his knee before his master to explain, "The girl was stronger in the Force than I anticipated. She called it to her, the Light, and the Dark followed; righteousness, then rage. She stood on the precipice of the Dark Side when she cut me down."

"The Light still calls to you," Snoke spat with disgust, "and now this girl in her innocence has compelled you to compassion."

"She can be turned, Supreme Leader! She can become one of us!"

"You, Master of the Knights of Ren, infatuated with a scavenger! You cannot turn yourself fully to the Dark Side and you expect me to believe that you can turn this girl?"

"By the grace of your training I shall not fail," Ren answered.

The Supreme Leader rose up and loomed over Kylo Ren. Hux steeled himself, against what he did not know.

"It is time to complete your training, Kylo Ren. This is your final test," and with that Snoke pressed his long index finger against Ren's forehead. Kylo Ren screamed, guttural and primal like a dying thing. Hux clapped his hands over his ears, unable to tear his eyes from the tableau before him. The cauterized wounds from lightsaber strikes ruptured suddenly with Ren's skyrocketing blood pressure and Snoke dug his finger more deeply into the torn flesh of his forehead. Bloody and screaming, Kylo Ren vibrated under the onslaught of Snoke's Force attack until he was suddenly still and quiet. When the Supreme Leader lifted his finger, Kylo Ren slumped against the floor.

"General, take him away."

Hux was panting, exhausted from having watched such a thing.

"Is he dead, Supreme Leader? Did he fail?" Hux dared to ask as he looked down at Ren.

"That remains to be seen. He is in the dreamtime now, the labyrinth of his own nature. He will awaken when he has completed his trial. Should he fail…we shall see," the Supreme Leader trailed off, his mind moving onto other things.

Where it not for the rush of adrenaline, Hux would not have been able to hoist Ren's dead weight off the floor and sling a long arm about his shoulder. The tips of his boots dragged across the floor as Hux retreated from the throne room and headed towards the medbay. He was going to stick Ren in a bacta tank until his body healed and then figure out the rest later.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One

* * *

Dawn crept over the horizon. The birds knew. Their clacking chorus woke Rey before the first gentle touches of blue light sent the shadows scurrying into hiding.

Rey stretched under her blankets and thought fondly of turning on her little stove to cook her morning gruel. Mornings were cold on Ahch-To: cold and moist. "Dank" was the word Master Luke had used.

Rolling out of her bedding, Rey came to a crouch next to her little stove and turned the knob. A hiss and tiny blue flames whooshed into illumination.

Rey reached for her ceramic pitcher, it was in the shape of a rearing fish and made a delightful gurgling sound when she poured the water into her pot.

Working quickly, nimble fingers ripped open a metallic package and poured out the contents. Dried grain and fruit swished down with a little puff of sweet powder and she swirled her long spoon in the pot to mix the ingredients before warming it up.

The heat and the stirring changed the viscosity of her meal until her spoon was dragging along and the smell made her stomach tremble in anticipation.

Rey turned off her little stove and took her breakfast outside her hut, watching the sunrise and scraping her spoon against the bottom of her pot to get every last sweet morsel. Rey looked forward to morning tea with Master Luke.

The colony of Abla-tros spread out along the cliffs beneath her hut. Their name meant "white traveler" in an ancient language chipped in ruins on temple slabs.

Master Luke said the birds only ever came down to the islands to breed. They spent their lives gliding all over the planet, dozing on the wing, and skimming the vast ocean for fish.

The birds clacked their beaks together and crossed their necks before one lifted off by flapping its huge wings. Rey watched them at their morning ritual, eternally fascinated by their comings and goings.

It was one thing to see them at a distance in the sky or far out above the waves, but quite another when they had started to land. Rey had been wary of them at first. Alba-tros were enormous creatures with wingspans as wide as an X-wing and standing at height with Rey's chin.

"We are not on the menu, Rey," Master Luke told her when he sensed her tensing as she watched two birds fence each other with their clacking beaks.

"Why are they fighting?" Rey had asked and Master Luke had smiled at her.

"They are dancing," he said and Rey had looked at him with incredulity. After long and careful observation, Rey saw that Master Luke was right. The great birds were gentle with each other, despite the loud clacking their beaks made.

"They mate for life, always coming back to the same place to build their nest and raise their chick," Master Luke told her. Rey smiled then, thinking of the birds who always came back. Her smile faded as an anxious thought struck her.

"What happens when one of them does not come back, Master Luke?"

"They keep flying," he said after a pause the length of a sigh, "They never touch the ground again." Rey was sad then, thinking of these great birds living out the rest of their lives piloting the planet, alone, until they died and their bodies crashed into the water.

But Rey would not allow herself to think such blue thoughts today, not when Master Luke was waiting for her. They would take their morning tea and then go across the island to where the Great Rowan grew.

Rey had never meditated beneath the tree before. Master Luke believed the tree could help her open herself to the Force, to let go of her emotions, and to be filled with the Force.

* * *

Luke poured hot water over the tea cups, warming them before preparing the tea. He splashed hot water over and into the teapot. Luke swirled the hot water in the teapot before spilling out the water. Luke ground the brick of tea over the teapot and the fine powder settled and coated its slippery inside. He poured more hot water into the warm teapot and set the lid on it to allow the tea to seep.

Rey watched him carefully as she knelt across from him, still learning this ancient ceremony by gaze alone.

The tea was known as debana with a pale green color and a floral scent. When Luke poured the tea into her cup it was the same color as the green glaze of the ceramic.

He picked up his cup and watched her as he sipped.

Rey was a quick study. She copied his mannerisms almost immediately, holding the cup with one hand around the rim while the other braced the weight of the cup at its base. Rey blew on her tea to cool it before taking a sip.

Not for the first time, he wondered who she was and where she came from. It was curious that she spent most of her childhood on a desert planet, but conjured Ahch-To exactly in her mind to soothe herself into sleep.

His apprentice was full of many curiosities: Rey possessed a sense of righteousness that could lead her into anger, though she was striking fair in the face of unfairness, her hope gave her endurance despite wretched loneliness and fear, but what worried Luke the most was her covetous nature and ravenous curiosity.

That was not to say that Rey was avaricious in nature. She did not seek the pleasures of the material world, but the few things that were hers became almost personified. Rey regarded her meager possessions with an affection that most creatures reserved for droids and her affection for droids was akin to relationships among fellow creatures.

Her curiosity was fueled by many things, a need to understand and a need to control, and she sought to satiate it by any means necessary. This caused her to reach out to the Force with a grasping hand instead of allowing the Force to flow through her.

Luke mused that it was a natural consequence of her childhood and was part of the riddle of her inability to meditate deeply. Attachments were often the root cause and he hoped that the ancient Rowan tree, where thousands of Jedi had learned to meditate thousands of years ago, could prove to be effective in allowing her a deeper connection to the Force.

Rey had finished her tea first and was waiting for him to finish, humming a soothing melody. Luke took his last sip and set his teacup down.

"What are you humming, Rey?"

"Oh, just something that pops into my head from time to time," Rey answered.

Luke wondered if it was a lullaby, stored in her memory since infancy; a wordless melody from a time before she had words. Now she was full of words and languages. Rey could pick a thing up, roll it in her hands once and know it intimately before putting it down again, before anyone else had even noticed the thing.

Rey gasped unexpectedly, squeezing her eyes shut and gritting her teeth. She stopped breathing and held herself very still as her face twisted in a painful grimace.

"What is it, Rey?" Luke asked in concern, reaching out to her with his hand and the Force.

Rey tried to answer, but when she unclenched her jaw she could only pant in great gulps of air. She doubled over, her hands clenched in fists atop her knees, and vibrated with pain.

"Rey," Luke called to her as he put his hand on her shoulder. She relaxed under his hand and tried to take deep breaths.

"What happened?" Luke was not sure what he just witnessed. Rey straightened her back with her fingertips rubbing her forehead.

"Something…powerful came over me. It felt like I was being stabbed in the head," Rey tried to explain the feeling that had just assaulted her, "but it felt like it was inside my head at the same time. I never felt anything like…" She trailed off, unable to continue.

Luke waited for her to gather her thoughts, he did not press her. He folded his hands inside of his robes and let the Force take the edge off his worry.

"No," Rey's eyes shifted as unpleasant memories surfaced, "I felt…something like it once…when Kylo Ren tried to take the map."

Rey paused and Luke closed his eyes and breathed deeply at the mention of his nephew.

"Do you think he was trying to get in my head again? Can he do that from…wherever he is?" Rey asked, unsure and afraid.

Luke opened his eyes again to her pinched expression and her fingers running circles over her temples.

"I think it time to head for the tree," Luke said, "and begin this lesson immediately."


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

* * *

Kylo Ren sat on his throne and contemplated his situation as molten rock flowed beneath the grate in the floor before him. Without the ruddy light and the roasting heat from the magma the throne room would be as dark and cold as a tomb. He spoke aloud, not just to himself, but loud enough so that the Voice from Beyond could hear him as well.

"I am a Master of the Dark: I seek the solace of shadows and the blessed night. The Light is my enemy. But all this shall change. Ben Solo must die. And yet, something troubles me and gives me pause. I feel a presence in the Force. Looking upon so lonely a creature one would not believe she could contain such power. One could rule the galaxy with it. I must find her, destroy her, and take what is mine."

Kylo Ren could almost feel Vader's lightsaber in his clenched fist. It was the weapon he would use to kill Ben Solo, once he had taken it from the girl's cold, dead hand. It was his; his by right and by might.

"The only lure for such a creature is innocence," the Voice from Beyond hissed and commanded, "Ben Solo will be the bait."

* * *

Rey sat beneath the great tree all day as Master Luke anxiously hovered. Her head had cleared itself of the pain, but beyond that nothing else happened. No moment of enlightenment with the Force and no further attempts at intrusion from Kylo Ren…or whatever that had been.

On their walk to the tree, Master Luke explained that he had no idea if Kylo Ren could be the cause of her pain, but the possibility of it gave him great concern. Master Luke had no idea as to the extent of the Dark Side of the Force and what Kylo Ren had access to in classified and restricted Imperial Archives recovered by the First Order.

The graying light of the day brought an end to Rey's valiant attempt at meditation. Master Luke said they would try again tomorrow. Rey was hungry and looking forward to supper. It was still odd for her to eat more than one meal a day and not be famished all the time. Tonight there would be real portions of dehydrated meat and tap root in her pot.

Master Luke bid her goodnight and lingered in the fork of the path before walking to his own dwelling. Rey knew that if she needed him she could go to him at any time. Her panglossian nature overcame her worry from the morning and her supper left her warm and cozy as she curled up in her blankets.

* * *

Rey dreamed that night. _A lucid dream._ It was oddly quiet; silent. Darkness was suddenly illuminated by a single shaft of light. Rey was reminded of the light pouring down from a dying star onto a bridge where two men stood. _Ominous._ But here there was only a boy with dark hair and pale robes. _Was it the boy from her Force Vision?_ Yes.

Rey moved closer to the boy. No, something else was moving closer to the boy. _Coming out of the darkness and into the light, but only just._ The boy felt it and was afraid. He moved about and the creature shadowed him.

Rey spun around them; the light and the shadow moving in tandem. Tall and lean, the creature was building up to something with his nightmarish dance. _Heavy breathing and the sound of stiff fabric swishing._

And there it was, the creature swelled and lashed out at the boy; capturing him in an inescapable grip. Rey could do nothing, realizing she was merely observing something that had already happened. _A memory._

No sound, but an intense pressure descended on Rey's ears as the creature enfold around the prince. _The…prince?_ Yes, the prince, and when the creature turned the prince out from him the boy was gone and in his place thrashed a large, black bird with an elegant neck and a slash of red nares. _Wingbeats into the darkness and then nothing._

* * *

Rey woke up, the dream as heavy on her mind as sleep in her limbs. It was still full dark and the Alba-tros were silently asleep. There was something significant about that dream and Rey was puzzling it out. She would tell Master Luke about it, no doubt, just as she had told him about her Force Vision.

The boy in the dream was the same as the boy in her vision, Rey was sure, but she did not know why the boy was a prince in her dream or why that dark creature had turned him into a bird. Unless…unless that boy was…

Rey sat up. Was her dream a metaphor for Ben Solo becoming Kylo Ren? If his mother was a princess did that not make him a prince? Who or what was that dark creature? And what kind of bird was the poor boy turned into?

In the dream, she had felt his terror and his struggle. Was the creature Snoke, the Supreme Leader of the First Order she had heard of, or Kylo Ren, or a manifestation of the Dark Side itself?

Rey, thinking back to Han Solo's death on Starkiller, could hear Kylo Ren's voice, _"You son was weak and foolish like his father, so I killed him."_ Han said it was a lie. Is Ben…still there? Is that what the dream meant? What if Ben Solo was separate from Kylo Ren? Trapped in another form like the boy in her dream, what if Ben is alone and afraid. What if he is hiding, waiting for rescue? What if he is waiting for me?

And from that moment of doubt, Rey knew there would be no rest. She would go to Master Luke now and seek his guidance. Rey knew the path would be hard, Han Solo had died treading it, but she would not turn back.


End file.
